There immediately occurred an important affair, in which the king was
obliged to have recourse to the authority of Anselm.  Matilda,
daughter of Malcolm III., King of Scotland, and niece to Edgar
Atheling, had, on her father's death, and the subsequent revolutions
in the Scottish government, been brought to England, and educated
under her aunt Christina, in the nunnery of Rumsey.  This princess
Henry purposed to marry; but as she had worn the veil, though never
taken the vows, doubts might arise concerning the lawfulness of the
act; and it behoved him to be very careful not to shock, in any
particular, the religious prejudices of his subjects.  The affair was
examined by Anselm in a council of the prelates and nobles, which was
summoned at Lambeth; Matilda there proved that she had put on the
veil, not with the view of entering into a religious life, but merely
in consequence of a custom familiar to the English ladies, who
protected their chastity from the brutal violence of the Normans by
taking shelter under that habit [n], which, amidst the horrible
licentiousness of the times, was yet generally revered.  The council,
sensible that even a princess had otherwise no security for her
honour, admitted this reason as valid; they pronounced that Matilda
was still free to marry [o] and her espousals with Henry were
celebrated by Anselm with great pomp and solemnity [p].  No act of the
king's reign rendered him equally popular with his English subjects,
and tended more to establish him on the throne.  Though Matilda,
during the life of her uncle and brothers, was not heir of the Saxon
line, she was become very dear to the English on account of her
connexions with it: and that people, who, before the Conquest, had
fallen into a kind of indifference towards their ancient royal family,
had felt so severely the tyranny of the Normans, that they reflected
with extreme regret on their former liberty, and hoped for more equal
and mild administration, when the blood of their native princes should
be mingled with that of their new sovereigns [q].
[ [n] Eadmer, p. 57.  [o] Ibid.  [p] Hoveden, p. 468.  [q] M. Paris,
p. 40.]